Last week I deplored the lack of time devoted to science in early elementary grades. Well, if kids aren't spending time on Science, what are they doing?

They are spending a great deal of time on English Language Arts. According to the papers I cited, 62% of classroom time for first-graders, and 47% for third-graders.

The irony is that, by failing to include more time for science, history, geography, civics, etc., we are very likely hurting reading comprehension. Why? Because reading depends so heavily on prior knowledge.

Every passage that you read omits information. For example, consider this simple passage "Dan was so embarrassed. He went to the concert and forgot to turn off his phone." The author has omitted much information: the phone rang, the ringing was audible to others, the phone rang at a time when others were enjoying the music. All of this omitted information must be brought to the text by the reader. Otherwise the passage will be puzzling, or only partly understood. (I made a video explaining this phenomenon. You can see it here.)

Once kids are fluent decoders, much of the difference among readers is not due to whether you're a "good reader" or "bad reader" (meaning you have good or bad reading skills). Much of the difference among readers is due to how wide a range of knowledge they have. If you hand me a reading test and the text is on a subject I happen to know a bit about, I'll do better than if it happens to be on a subject I know nothing about.

Two predictions fall out of this hypothesis.

First, if take some "bad readers" and give them a text on a subject they know something about, they should suddenly read well, or at least, much better.

Several studies show that that is the case. In one that I've cited before, Recht & Leslie (1988) tested "good" and "poor" readers (as identified by a reading test) on their comprehension of a passage about baseball. Some kids knew a lot about baseball, some not so much.

I've copied Table 1 from their paper: The numbers ("quantity" and "quality") are two different measures of comprehension--in each case, larger numbers mean better comprehension. I've circled data from the two critical groups: Lower left = "poor" readers who know a lot about baseball. Upper right = "good" readers who don't know about baseball.

Here's a second prediction. There should be a correlation between world knowledge and reading comprehension. The more stuff you know about the world, the more likely it is that you'll know at least a bit about whatever passage you happen to hit.

The Recht & Leslie paper is well known, but this finding, less so. It's from a paper by Anne Cunningham & Keith Stanovich that was actually addressing a different question.

The researchers administered a number of different measures to 11th graders, including the comprehension subtest of the Nelson-Denny Reading test, and three measures of general cultural knowledge: a 45 item cultural literacy test (e.g., in what part of the body does the infection called pneumonia occur? What is the term for selling domestic merchandise abroad?). A second test used 20 items from the NAEP history and literature tests (e.g., "Which mythical Greek hero demonstrated his bravery during his long journey homeward after the Trojan war?") In the third test the researchers provided a list of 48 names, 24 of which represented famous figures from history, the arts, sciences, etc. Students were to pick the famous names and ignore the non-famous names.

The red circle shows the remarkably high correlation between reading comprehension and the measures of cultural knowledge.

This association may not seem so remarkable. Wouldn't one predict that smart kids are good readers, and smart kids also know a lot of stuff? So all we've done is measure intelligence in two indirect ways.

In sum, once kids can decode fluently, reading comprehension depends heavily on knowledge. By failing to provide a solid grounding in basic subjects we inadvertently hobble children's ability in reading comprehension.

I should add: You can go a long way towards addressing this problem by including content-rich materials in ELA. The writers of the Common Core Standards clearly got this point.

Reply

Sol Stern

03/07/2012 5:56pm

Yes Dan, but the same Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, who is pushing states to adopt the Common Core ELA standards is also bribing states to adopt value added methodology for rating teachers. So the reality is that teachers will focus narrowly on teaching skills useful for tests, because the tests are where their bread is buttered. Content knowledge will be sacrificed for job security and bonuses.

Reply

Daniel Bruno

03/09/2012 12:04pm

While that may be true, I cannot believe that we must have one or the other. Much as this post advocates for combining content and ELA skills, there are interdisciplinary ways to ensure that students learn both testing skills and prior knowledge. E.D. Hirsch makes a similar case in The Knowledge Deficit.

Reply

Sol Stern

03/09/2012 12:40pm

Of course you are right that we need not "have one or the other." Unfortunately, the testing results are now what produces either monetary gains or the threat of loss of livelihood for teachers. As long as that is true teachers will opt for emphasis on test skills. Teachers are human, after all. Also see Campbell's Law.

I think part of the point of this post is precisely that if teachers want to improve their test scores, what they should *really* be doing is teaching more content knowledge and less in the way of those skills.

Reply

Kronosaurus

03/08/2012 10:29am

Dan, I just wanted to say I am very happy you have started this blog. I really appreciate your analysis on this topic. Please keep this blog going on a regular basis. I will definitely check it regularly.

As one that has spent the past 18 months deeply studying education and reform efforts (with parents that where both teachers) what Dan and ED Hirsch talk about seems just so logical, basically common sense. Just try reading about a difficult topic in which you know little about... Both content knowledge and general cultural literacy are needed. The sad fact is that students who need this the most get the least (having already started behind) which further pulls on the achievement gap. The other problem is that a content rich curriculum is not a quick fix, it takes time to build, that is why it is so important to start early. Hopefully someday more people with influence will see what just seems to be common sense and kick into high gear the quality of content that is taught to our children. It is possible to upgrade the topics that are taught, use history and science as duel tools and even teach such in a student centered way if desired.